


The Remains of the Day

by Isis



Category: due South
Genre: Angst, Multi, Post-Call of the Wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-29
Updated: 2007-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:32:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years later, Ray visits Fraser. Some things have changed; some things haven't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Remains of the Day

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a Team Angst entry in DS Match.

Diefenbaker heard it first and barked, running across our small living room; then I heard the low rumble of a vehicle pulling into the drive, its pitch changing as the car turned and slowed. The sudden cessation of noise as the engine was cut. A knock on the door.

I put down my book; not that I'd been able to concentrate on it, in any event. They were here. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door.

"Ray." I couldn't help the smile that came to my lips, the sudden warmth in my chest. He looked good. His face was more lined than the last time I had seen him, his hair shorter, but the familiar easy grace in his body as he stood on my doorstep in jeans and a leather jacket was all Ray. "Welcome to Haines Junction."

I held out my hand but Ray stepped up and hugged me, the way he'd done when we'd first met, and it was as though the last five years melted away in a heartbeat. With a quick, guilty glance at the red Nissan Pathfinder in the drive, I threw my own arms around him.

"Good to see you, Fraser. I've missed you."

"And I you." I extricated myself from his embrace and again looked over his shoulder at the car. My first impression was confirmed: nobody sat in the passenger seat. "Where's Amy?"

"Yeah, well, Amy." He ran a hand through his hair, shifted from one foot to the other. "She didn't come. Look, can I come in? Long drive from the airport." Without waiting for me to offer, he stepped by me, bent to ruffle Diefenbaker's fur. "Hey, wolf, how's it going?"

I stood in the doorway and watched Ray prowl around the room, watched him scrutinize the framed landscape photographs on the walls and the spines of the books arranged in the bookcase. "Cozy place you got yourself here."

"It suffices. _That_ was left by the former occupant," I said, as he poked a finger at the sofa, a comfortable piece of furniture covered in an unfortunate lurid pink and orange floral-patterned chintz. 

He shot me an amused look. "I figured. Not quite your style." 

"I should say not."

For a moment we were our old selves again, relaxed, happy, easy in our friendship. Then the moment stretched into the uncomfortable, the silence between people who have too many shared memories and too many questions to know where to begin asking, and we both looked away.

"Shall I get your things?"

"Sure, might as well move in," he said, and that brought another flood of memories. Maybe he saw it on my face, because he hurriedly added, "Don't want to spend the week in the car," and strode by me, through the still-open door. He got a large duffel bag and a small daypack from the back of the Pathfinder, waving away my offers to carry one or the other, and followed me back into the house.

I showed him to the room, which I'd conscientiously prepared, trying to make it look homey and inviting. The plain blue quilt was old, but it was clean, and I'd put new linens on the bed and a stack of blue-and-white striped towels on the battered bureau that was the only other piece of furniture. 

"Greatness," he said, dropping his bags on the floor beside the bed. "I was expecting to have to sleep on the floor." 

"I do get visitors from time to time," I told him. "And of course I wouldn't expect…."

There was another awkward silence as my words trailed off and hung in the air. Finally I said, "I had thought Amy was coming with you."

"Yeah, well," said Ray. "I was getting to that." He walked to the window, drummed his fingers on the sill, and it struck me that in the old days he would not have hesitated to tell me all about his relationship difficulties. Was it ridiculous of me to feel hopeful? Of course I didn't want him to be unhappy. And I bore Amy no ill will. But it was a good sign, wasn't it, that he had come to see me? I couldn't help myself from nurturing the faint blossom of _what if_.

"Amy's not feeling too hot right now. She didn't want to…." He looked out the window, not at me, and I wondered whether he could sense my turbulent thoughts. "To tell you the truth, Amy and me, we're not doing too good."

"Ah." 

He shrugged, a quick motion, and finally turned back toward me. "You're thinking, why isn't he staying with his wife, trying to make things better instead of going on vacation without her?"

"Of course I'm not," I said. But of course I was. From the moment he'd called and asked, tentatively, about a visit, I had wondered about his motivation. Now that he was here—alone—I wondered even more. My eyes went to his left hand, the wide gold band that gleamed on his ring finger.

"She wanted me to go." He spoke quickly, like he was trying to convince me, like he was trying to convince himself. "She wanted space, that's what she said. Well, both of us. Space for her, space for me. And I don't think she really—not that she doesn't like you, Frase, of course she does, but the Yukon's not her kind of vacation. And I thought, you know. We could catch up, just the two of us. It's been a long time."

Yes, I thought. Yes, it has.

* * *

"So this is the famous Fraser," said Amy.

"Hardly famous," I said, shaking her small, cool hand. She was quite pretty, slim and petite, with blonde hair that fell in a straight curtain past her shoulders. Ray, hovering behind her, clearly adored her. I hoped for his sake that she adored him. Ray needed to be adored, to be loved, to be needed. I wanted him to be happy.

He had wanted me to be best man, so I had flown to Arizona, feeling as though I were going to a funeral, not a wedding. But I couldn't say no, for I had traveled to Florida six months earlier for Ray Vecchio's wedding, and it was only fair I attend Ray Kowalski's wedding as well. (I admit to wondering whether the first wedding had precipitated the second.) 

I rented a car in Phoenix and drove north, from the low desert to the mountains. They were dry mountains, covered with red rock and scrub oak, very different from the alpine forest and glaciers of Kluane National Park just outside my own door. I wondered how Ray enjoyed living in Arizona, whether he missed Chicago. Whether he missed Canada. Whether he missed anything else.

I endured the ceremony, but surprised myself by enjoying the reception. Amy was younger than Ray by some seven or eight years, and this was her first wedding, with flowers and cake and bridesmaids in frilly dresses. Rather like a consulate reception, but with much better food. 

I was seated at a table with several of Ray's new colleagues on the Flagstaff police force. They were eager to hear stories about him from his former partner, and with satisfaction I told them that no, he had not embellished his tales. 

"So he really did ride a motorcycle through a window," said one, a florid and overweight man named Carmichael. (Later I learned he was Ray's lieutenant; I couldn't help comparing him, unfavourably, to Lieutenant Welsh.) He shook his head with a faint look of admiration on his face. His equally overweight wife shook her head as well, although she looked more disapproving than admiring. "Wouldn't have thought Kowalski had it in him."

"Ray's always done what the situation called for, no matter how unusual or unexpected," I said.

"Huh," said Carmichael, looking toward the head table where Ray sat, and I followed his gaze. Looking at Ray now—clean-shaven and wearing what must have been a rented tuxedo, his head bent close to his new wife's—it was hard to believe that he was the same man I had known. He looked—domestic, I suppose. The edge of rakishness I'd always associated with him was not entirely gone, but it had certainly been blunted.

After the dinner, Amy's sister honoured me with a dance, as did several of Amy's fellow elementary-school teachers. Then Ray led Amy over to me, and I had no choice but to dance with her. She felt small and fragile in my arms, a delicate white satin flower. I wondered just how much he had told her about me. 

Later I met Ray's brother, and spent some time talking with Ray's parents, who remembered me from their visit to Chicago. 

"Isn't it wonderful?" Barbara Kowalski said to me. "We'd been hoping Stanley would marry again, and Amy's such a lovely woman."

"She is." My voice was as neutral as I could make it.

"And living so close!"

"Just wait," Damian told her. "When they have kids you're going to spend all your time babysitting."

"Oh, I'm counting on it." Turning to me, she added, "Of course, it's not really that close. Our trailer park is closer to Kingman—that's nearly two hours. And summers we're traveling. But it's been good to have Stanley in the same state again. Damian just couldn't take Skokie winters. Heaven knows what we'd have done if he'd stayed in Canada with you."

"Actually, the Yukon is quite beautiful in the summer," I started, but she'd already turned to talk with someone else, and Damian gave me a weak shrug and headed off to refill his beer glass. Certainly we get a stream of RVs all summer, traveling the Alaska Highway. They would have been welcome to visit, if Ray had stayed. But Ray had chosen not to stay, and the Kowalskis had never driven the Alaska Highway.

* * *

"Wow," said Ray, looking up at the snow-covered spine of the Saint Elias range. We were standing in my front yard, looking west. At four in the afternoon on this summer's day, the sun still shone high in the deep blue sky, reflecting bright and cold from the glaciers. "Those are some big mountains." 

"Yes, they are. Mount Logan's nearly six thousand meters."

"And what's that in American?"

I calculated the conversion in my head. "A bit more than nineteen thousand five hundred. But we're at nearly two thousand feet here, so—"

"Yeah, only seventeen thousand and change. No problem. You think we can make it up and back by dinnertime?"

I shot him a quick look, but he was grinning. "I was planning on a slightly less ambitious ascent. If you're interested." I indicated one of the closer peaks. "Mount Decoeli's an eighteen kilometer—that is, around eleven mile round trip. And the elevation gain's only a bit more than four thousand vertical feet. We could climb it Thursday, if you'd like." 

He eyed the summit. "Six thousand feet? Hell, I live higher than that now."

"Seven thousand six hundred, actually, because the trailhead's a bit out of town. But the view's extraordinary. And since you're living at altitude now, I'm sure you won't find it difficult in the least."

"Great," he said. "So that takes care of Thursday. What are we doing until then?"

I looked down at the scrubby grass. "I had thought—that is, I only scheduled two days of vacation, at the end of the week. I've got some maps and tourist brochures for you, but I'm afraid you'll have to explore on your own."

"Duty calls, huh?" His voice sounded light, but I didn't dare meet his eyes as we walked back inside. Surely he knew I had had no desire to spend an entire week with the two of them, together; always the interloper, the odd man out. I had wondered how I would endure them staying in my guest bedroom. Haines Junction had several motels, and several times I had been on the point of calling one to make reservations. But it would have seemed cold, and I couldn't bring myself to do it. In the North we have a tradition of hospitality, no matter the circumstances.

If I had known it would be just Ray, I would have made other arrangements. I could think of nothing I'd rather do than accompany him, show him the glory of my country in full summer: the way the wildflowers poked up from the new grass at the glaciers' edges, the thunderous roar of waterfalls racing to the sea. But summer was the busy season for the Haines Junction detachment, and as corporal, I had my responsibilities. Instead I sent Ray off the next morning in his rented Pathfinder with a sheaf of maps and two guidebooks, one for the Yukon and British Columbia and one for southeast Alaska.

He called that evening from Haines, said he was going to spend the night there, then take the ferry to Skagway and drive back from there. "I'll be back at your house Wednesday. That okay?"

"Of course." It made sense for him to stay there, to take his time exploring the remarkable beauty of the Alaskan coast, and I had expected it. But I couldn't help being obscurely annoyed that he'd come all this way to see me and had only spent one night in my house before heading out again.

The previous night we'd talked about our lives in only the most general terms: police work, house maintenance, which mutual friends we had spoken to recently, and which we'd lost touch with. It had been nearly three years since we'd seen each other, constrained by the circumstances of his wedding; five years since we'd parted company in Inuvik. 

Nothing was said about the relationship difficulties he'd alluded to. I didn't want to ask, and he didn't offer. But I wanted to know. I wanted to know everything, his triumphs and his downfalls, what he dreamed of, what he wanted, what he feared. We'd been partners once, a duet, and I yearned to recapture that feeling, if only for the short span of his visit. 

Through the phone line, I could hear the sounds of pages turning, maps unfolding. "So, I guess I've got to come back through Whitehorse, right? I feel like I'm going around in circles."

"It's quite a scenic circle. Although the segment between Whitehorse and here is hardly worth driving twice."

"Nah, it's only a hundred miles or so. No biggie. Besides, I like driving. Been feeling kind of restless, you know?"

I knew. Ray had always radiated restlessness, a desire to be somewhere else, anywhere else. Our adventure across the Northwest Territories had been his idea, and even in Chicago he had seemed most at home behind the wheel of his GTO. It hadn't surprised me at all to learn that his parents lived in a travel trailer and spent half of each year on the road. 

And yet, underneath it all, it seemed to me he also craved stability, a home he could return to, the warmth of family. Perhaps I was projecting my own needs on him. But I had once hoped that we could find both of these things together, adventure and stability, like the wolves that roam the tundra but always return as a pack to their own den. 

* * *

Ray had returned to Chicago to find that since Ray Vecchio had retired to Florida, and I planned to stay in Canada, he was no longer needed at the 27th Precinct. Lieutenant Welsh offered him a job, if he wanted it, or a transfer if he didn't, but he surprised everyone—or so I gathered—by leaving the city altogether.

He sent me a postcard from Kansas City, one from Colorado Springs two months later. I sent him a Christmas card but it was returned, no such address; later I heard he'd moved to Santa Fe, and not very long after that he called me from Flagstaff. Kansas City had been too boring, Colorado Springs too conservative, Santa Fe too liberal and far too expensive. But he liked Flagstaff, which was close enough to his parents' trailer park for convenient visits, but not so close that he felt guilty about doing so only once a month.

It was hard for me to imagine Ray somewhere other than Chicago. He had always seemed at home there, unlike me. But maybe our travels through the lonely vastness of the north had changed him; I traced his route in my atlas and saw that he'd moved from larger cities to smaller ones, from canyons of glass and steel to the redrock canyons of the American West. Flagstaff was still a city by my standards, but it was a far cry from Chicago.

For my part, I had been happy, at first, to be in Inuvik. Even after the disappointment of Ray's decision to leave, I thought I might make it my home. I had fond memories of the place, and my half-sister Maggie was there. She offered me a place to stay while I got my bearings. I applied for a position at the RCMP detachment there, where she worked as well. It was pleasant, for a time.

But as I waited for the paperwork to percolate through the system, I started to wonder whether my only reason for staying was simple inertia. Inuvik seemed at the same time both too large and too small, and I chafed against its remoteness, its insularity. The qualities I had once longed for now seemed oppressive. Maybe I had been affected by my time in Chicago, just as our adventure had affected Ray. 

I looked through the RCMP administrative newsletter for vacancies. Haines Junction was much smaller than Inuvik, but its location at a busy crossroads rather than the end of the road meant a constant stream of tourists in the summer and less isolation in the winter. Whitehorse, with ten times Inuvik's population, was only a couple of hours' drive to the east. 

My reassignment came through, and it suited me. Although I had been promoted to corporal, it was a tiny detachment, so I got my hands dirty, so to speak, nearly as much as the two constables under me. And although it felt a bit disloyal to my childhood to admit it, Haines Junction was a far more attractive town than Inuvik. I preferred looking out at the jagged peaks of the Saint Elias range, rather than at oil wells and utilidors. The mountains reminded me of the harsh country we'd crossed together, Ray and I.

* * *

Ray shrugged his daypack from his shoulders and let it fall to the ground with a thump. "You trying to kill me, Frase?"

"Rumours of your death appear to be greatly exaggerated." Despite his pained expression as he massaged his shoulder, he looked more hale than I would have expected considering our five-hour ascent to Mount Decoeli's rocky summit. He wasn't breathing much harder than I was, and although I had set a brisk pace, he had kept up with me the entire time. "You've been keeping yourself in shape."

"Yeah, I still work out. Some boxing, some lifting. Not as pathetic as I was the last time we did this, huh?"

"Not at all. I imagine it helps living at altitude. You're probably more adapted than I am."

He grinned. "You've still got the home-field advantage. And let me tell you, this is one hell of a home field." He nodded toward the ridges and valleys to the west, a quilt of icefields and tundra stretching to Alaska, the sharp, snowy slopes of Mount Logan towering above them all. "You get out here much?"

"Not as much as I would like," I admitted. "Although the park is part of our jurisdiction."

"Yeah, work ain't the same thing. I mean, you go in to the office in the morning, you do your job, chase the bad guys, whatever. You don't hike up mountains for work."

"On the contrary. There was the time Jimmy Heglin was intent on taking a Dall sheep well after the season had closed, and I pursued him nearly to—"

"Fraser. You know what I mean." He gave me an aggrieved look, then sat down beside his pack and pulled a water bottle from it. "That was work. This," he announced as he uncapped the bottle, "this is what I would call _fun_."

"Ah," I said, raising an eyebrow. "You don't enjoy your work."

"Of course I enjoy—Fraser, that's not the _point_." He took a long drink from his water bottle; I reached into my own pack for another and did the same. The water was cold and refreshing, and I was thirstier than I had realized. Diefenbaker, who had trotted to the far edge of the summit plateau to sniff at a marmot den, came back over to me, and I poured a little into a bowl for him to lap.

I finished my drink and put away my bottle. Ray was still drinking, one hand ruffling Diefenbaker's fur. His skin, sheened lightly with sweat, glowed. He looked relaxed and happy. "So," I finally said, "what _is_ the point?"

For a moment he didn't respond, and I wondered whether he'd forgotten what he was going to say before, if his mind had already moved on to other thoughts. He replaced the cap on his water bottle and set it down on the rocks by his feet, then folded his arms around his knees and laced his fingers together. "Remember when we were camping, just before, you know. Before Muldoon? And I asked you if you'd ever felt lost, and you said that Chicago was like another planet?"

"So you heard that. I thought you were asleep."

"Yeah, well, another two sentences and I was. But I was thinking about what you said, because lately I've been feeling kind of like _I'm_ on the wrong planet."

"If you don't like Arizona, I'm sure you can find another position in Chicago."

He shook his head. "It's not that. It's my whole life. I mean, this is what I always thought I wanted, right? The badge, the house, the wife, the kids."

A rock settled in my stomach, heavy and hard-edged. "You didn't tell me you had children."

"No, no, not yet," he said quickly. An unreadable expression crossed his face. "I mean, Amy and me, we were going to have kids, I always wanted to have kids, but now—now she's talking about starting to try, and I don't know." He studied his feet for a long moment. Finally he looked up at me. "We never did find the Hand of Franklin."

I blinked at his non sequitur. "No, we didn't."

"I'm thinking maybe we ought to go look for it again."

His eyes were guileless, open. "Ray," I said slowly. "The Hand…well, to use your own phrasing, that wasn't the point."

"Yeah, I know that. But let me tell you something else I know, okay? That was the best damn time of my life." He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the horizon. "I mean, okay, it was hard work. I had to learn a lot of stuff I never had to know in Chicago."

"Ray, you hated it," I said. "You complained constantly about the cold, the isolation, the physical exertion."

"But I did it, right? I got it figured out, the snowshoes and the dogs and setting up the tent, didn't I?"

"You did." He'd complained, but he'd done it, and done it well.

"Of course, I had some serious motivation. I thought I was gonna die a couple of times. But," he said, punctuating his words with a stab of his fingers in my direction, "this is the important thing, Fraser. That was the _most_ _alive_ I've ever been."

"Ah."

" _Ah_ , what is that supposed to mean? You felt it too, do not tell me you didn't. That was greatness." He uncapped his water bottle and took another long drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and grinned. "That was being alive."

* * *

At some point, we had decided to make for Inuvik. It was a worthy goal, nearly  
at the edge of the continent; Ray had argued for going all the way to the  
Beaufort Sea, but by the time we approached Inuvik it was nearly May, and the  
ice road to Tuktoyaktuk had no doubt started to thaw. We'd been nearly two  
months on our adventure. It was time to return to normal life.

By common agreement, we had kept our distance from roads and villages, except when we needed to resupply. But as we drew nearer to Inuvik, our route began to converge with the Dempster Highway, and from time to time the noises of large trucks and snow machines overlaid the natural sounds of wind and wildlife. The world was white and grey and blue. From a raven's-eye view, Ray and I were two splotches of darkness against the snow, our encampment the only sign of human life for miles around except for the ribbon of gravel road I knew lay to the west. The sky was clear, the sun a warm glow meandering across the southern sky; I cradled a mug of hot tea in my hands, enjoying the heat, the scent of chamomile.

Ray slouched in his camp chair with his own mug of tea, stretching his feet toward the meagre warmth of our stove. "Got any more pemmican?"

"We still have plenty," I said, bemused, and handed him the pouch. "I thought you didn't care for it."

"I guess it grew on me. But let me tell you, if I could get a pizza delivered out here, you'd be eating the rest of the pemmican." He chewed on a mouthful with a blissful look. "Hits the spot, though. Considering we don't have pizza."

"You're probably craving high-quality protein and fat."

"I'm craving Canadian bacon," he said, and then he shot me a lascivious look, and I blushed.

When nobody else in the world exists, you live on your own time. You make your own rules. Inspector Thatcher was a thousand miles away. My father was no longer second-guessing my actions. It was a heady feeling for me, to answer to no authority save my own.

It was different for Ray, or so I had thought. He had always skated the edge, pushing the rules until they moved to accommodate him. Long ago I'd learned that his boundaries were fluid, that he would throw his arms around me in public and gleefully declare, "I love you, Fraser," that he would lean so close that I inhaled his scent with every breath. That this was simply his way of being, of being with me, and that I should not interpret his behaviour otherwise; that I should be happy for every crumb of affection he carelessly tossed my way.

So I was unprepared when, as we huddled together in our tent one afternoon against the storm that raged outside, he muttered, "Oh, hell," and pulled me tightly to his warm body with unmistakable intent. He buried his face in my neck; his lips moved on my skin and my heart burst with terror and joy and I was entirely undone.

Now, as we sat in our camp, the look in his eyes warmed me more than the tea. I smiled and moved a little closer. "I'm sure we can get pizza in Inuvik. They might even have bacon, but I wouldn't bet on pineapple."

Something in his face changed. "How long 'til we hit town?"

"Tomorrow or the next day, depending on how early a start we get."

"Huh." He took another bite of pemmican, washed it down with some tea, then turned his mug in his hands.

"A bit anticlimactic, perhaps," I said, and he shrugged.

"Guess it's time."

Later, in the tent, he kissed me fiercely, and I could feel the tension in the strong grip of his fingers, in the hoarse gasp that escaped him when he came into my hands.

Inuvik appeared on the horizon the next day, and the day after that we were there. It was as though civilization had snuck up on us and surrounded us when we weren't paying attention; suddenly there were gift shops and restaurants, cars and noise and streetlights. We checked into the Eskimo Inn. Ray seemed more subdued than usual.

Ray showered first; when I came out of the bathroom, clean-shaven and warm and relaxed, Ray was sitting on one of the beds, looking through the tourist information pamphlets that had been arrayed in the shape of a fan on the desk next to the television. He was wearing a damp t-shirt and his sweatpants. His hair, grown long during our travels, hung across his forehead as he hunched over the pamphlets.

"Anything in particular you'd like to do?" I asked as I rubbed my hair dry with a towel.

"Just looking at air connections."

My heart sank. "Ray," I said quietly, "you don't have to go."

"I got to get back to work, you know that."

I put down the towel and sat next to him on the bed, and it all came out in a rush. That the past two months had been extraordinary. Being home, being with him. That I wanted to stay here, in Canada, and serve my country the way I knew best; and that I wanted him to stay with me.

His look was faintly sad, faintly pitying. "Look, Frase. You got a place here. I don't."

"We'll find you something. You've got skills, you've got—"

"I've got nothing." His voice was flat. 

"You've got me."

"And don't get me wrong, it's been great. Greatness. But what were you thinking?" In one swift movement he sprang to his feet and began pacing the length of the small room. "That we'd get an apartment together? The Mountie and his boyfriend, is that what you were thinking? I cannot do that, Fraser." He ran a hand through his hair.

"I don't see why not," I said, trying not to let the hurt I felt show in my voice.

"Are you kidding me? This is a small town. I know how small towns work. You can't do that in a place like this."

"You're from Chicago, Ray. Hardly a small town."

"Chicago's got neighbourhoods, and every neighbourhood is exactly like a small town. Just like here. You got your nosy old lady next door, wants to know exactly how much money you make and who came over last night. She's gonna want to know everything."

"So she knows. I don't have a problem with that."

"Yeah, well, maybe I do." He glared at me for a moment, then sat on the edge of the desk. "Maybe I don't like people thinking I might be queer."

His words hung heavily between us. "Ray," I said carefully, "what we do and with whom we choose to do it is our own business."

"You don't get it!" He gestured at me, his hands making swift, sharp cuts through the air. His words tumbled over each other, fast and harsh and desperate. "What we do when we're in the middle of the godforsaken tundra, that's one thing. But I'm talking about life, about the whole enchilada, about getting up in the morning and going to work, coming home and having dinner, you know? When I was a kid I did not think, hey, when I grow up I'm gonna marry another guy, live with him at the edge of nowhere. That is not my life." 

I stared at him, feeling as though I had been slapped in the face. I had thought I knew Ray as well as anybody can know another person; we had shared triumphs and tragedies, joy and sorrow. I loved him. I didn't know him at all. "So I was just a way to—to pass the time. A source of warmth in the "godforsaken tundra," as you say."

"Oh, hell, Frase, I love you, okay?" It was said as glibly as he'd ever said it in Chicago, and I knew, now, to put exactly as much weight on it as I had then. "The past couple months, they were amazing—that was the adventure I was dreaming about. But it's over now. It's time for me to go back, have a normal life like all the other poor slobs back at the station."

"I see."

"Good, that's good," he said, sounding relieved. "We're still buddies, right?"

"Of course."

We slept that night each in our own bed. In the morning, I drove him to the airstrip.

* * *

To celebrate our successful ascent we stopped at the Village Bakery for pizza. The sun was still high in the sky and the warmth soaked into our skins; we sat on the restaurant's deck and looked back at the mountains where we'd just been. 

"So, what do you think?" said Ray around a mouthful of pepperoni and mushroom.

"About what?"

"About going on another adventure. Doing something cool."

I finished chewing my own bite of pizza before I answered. "Ray, I have a job. I can't just leave it."

"Then take a vacation. It's part of the Geneva Convention or something, everybody gets vacation, even Canadians, right?"

I refrained from correcting him on the specifics of the Geneva Convention, merely saying, "As it happens, I have nearly six weeks of accumulated vacation time."

"More'n me, you bum. But okay, that's great. When do you want to do it?"

He looked completely earnest, and I sighed. "We've had our adventure, Ray."

"So we can have another one." He grinned. His chin was covered with fine stubble; he must not have shaved that morning. He had taken off the light jacket he'd worn on our hike. His wedding ring glinted in the late-day sun that slanted over the mountains.

I wondered what he thought of, when he imagined going on another adventure together. Was it the slogging in snowshoes across endless snowfields he remembered, or the long hours of twilight we spent discovering each other's body? Did I even figure into his daydreamings as anything other than a guide? Had his marriage erased the memories of exactly how we had spent our time together?

"Frase?"

I realized that I had been silent for some moments, staring at his ring. "Sorry. I was just wondering what Amy thinks of your idea to head off on another adventure without her. Or were you planning to bring her along?"

His face darkened. "This isn't about Amy, okay? This is about you and me doing the Lewis and Clark thing."

"She's your wife. It isn't fair to make plans that don't include her."

"What if she's making plans that don't include _me_ , huh? What if I don't want to be part of her plans?" He was getting loud enough that heads turned toward us from the other tables.

"I didn't realize things were that bad," I said quietly. 

"Oh, fuck, I don't know." He rubbed at his neck tiredly with one hand. "Look, I don't want to talk about Amy. I came here so I do not have to talk about Amy." Suddenly he grinned, picked up another slice of pizza and held it up in front of me. "Let's talk about pizza."

"All right. It's good pizza, isn't it?"

"It's okay," he said, taking a bite. "But nothing beats the pizza they got in Chicago."

The next morning we drove north, along the shore of Kluane Lake, and visited the small museum in Burwash Landing. I suggested renting a boat, but Ray shuddered and said that after nearly drowning on the Henry Allen he was not too excited about getting on a boat again, thank you very much.

"You didn't seem to mind the Bounty."

"With that many Mounties around, I figured I was safe."

"One isn't enough?"

"Look at those boats," he said, pointing to the canoes stacked by the Burwash Landing Resort. "They're practically sinking sitting on the ground."

"Pity," I said, shrugging. I shouldn't have, but I couldn't resist. "I was thinking that canoeing down the Yukon River might suit your taste for adventure. Of course a simple lake excursion is far tamer."

He stared at me in horror. "You're yanking my chain, right?"

I smiled and walked over to inspect the canoes more closely. The truth was that I had given the idea some thought since the previous evening. I did have a great deal of vacation time accrued. Although I lived in a small town in a vast province, I missed the wilderness. And I missed Ray's company, on any terms. 

But I would know better, now, than to expect things from him he wasn't prepared to give me. We would do the trip, if we did one, as friends; that would be sufficient for me.

I turned to him. "Well?" 

He swallowed visibly, then nodded. We paid for an hour, then Ray and I carried one of the canoes to the dock and set it into the water. I took my seat at the back and motioned him in.

"Okay, I can do this," he muttered, more to himself than to me, as he carefully stepped into the canoe. But as we paddled along the shoreline, I could see the muscles in his shoulders relax, hear his breathing ease.

"Better?" I asked, when we'd been on the water for fifteen minutes or so.

"Yeah." He let the edge of his paddle trail in the water, then picked it up and twisted so he was looking at me. "Are you happy?"

I put my own paddle across my thighs and considered for a moment as we drifted in the milky blue water. "Do you mean right now, or in more general terms?"

"General, I guess. You like what you're doing? In general?"

"You mean my career? It's who I am, Ray, you know that."

"You like living here? Yeah, of course you do, who wouldn't? It's beautiful." He looked off toward the peaks of the Saint Elias Range, trailed a hand in the water. "I wouldn't mind living here, myself."

My breath caught in my throat. Was that an oblique feeler, or just a comment on the scenery? If he and Amy were on the brink of divorce, as Ray had implied earlier, maybe he was thinking about—maybe he was considering—reconsidering -

I would not let myself jump to conclusions. Carefully I said, "Very different from Arizona, at any rate."

"Yeah." He took up his paddle again and began digging at the water, and so I had to paddle as well, to keep us from going in circles, and then a goose flapped its awkward way across the water in front of us, and our conversation turned to other things.

* * *

The aurora was magnificent, arcing across the starry sky in sizzling, dancing colors. Despite the frigid air we stood outside our tent for a long while, enjoying the display.

Later, when I asked Ray if he missed spending evenings watching television, he smiled and pointed at the sky.

* * *

When we returned to my house, Ray headed into the shower while I started dinner. I was mixing the salad dressing when the phone rang.

"This is Benton Fraser, hello."

"Hello, Benton," said a soft female voice. "This is Amy Kowalski. Are you and Ray having a good time?"

"Very much so. I'm sorry you couldn't make it."

"Me, too. Can I speak to Ray, please?"

"One moment." I didn't hear the water running, so I knocked on the bathroom door, and he opened it. He was towelling off his hair, a second towel slung low across his hips, and I tried not to look at his bare chest while I told him he had a phone call.

Out of courtesy I busied myself in the living room while they talked. But my house is small, and my hearing acute, and Ray is not a quiet man. He asked after the weather and her health; laughed at some story she told; embellished his account of our climb of Mount Decoeli by at least two hours and four miles. He said, "oh?" and "huh," and "of course I am." He said, "Love you too, babe." He hung up the phone.

The sound of Ray's fist slamming onto the kitchen counter sent me hurrying back into the kitchen. "Is everything all right?"

"Fine," said Ray.

Dinner was a subdued affair, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Ray washed the dishes. We took Diefenbaker for a walk around the neighbourhood, and he must have sensed our moods because he was as quiet as we were. When we came back to the house I nodded to Ray and said that I thought I'd turn in, but he was of course welcome to read or watch my small television—again, left by a former occupant, but it worked well enough to bring in the single channel available.

Ray looked at his watch. "Ten o'clock, Jesus. I just cannot get used to how it stays light so late." 

"Deceptive, I know. Of course we pay for it in the winter."

"Been there, done that. Inuvik, at least, right? That wasn't so bad."

"That was spring. You should be here in December." At the winter solstice we get less than six hours of daylight—admittedly, more than Inuvik receives.

"Maybe I will," said Ray, and a slow smile stole across his face, and I could not look at him any longer. I fled to my bedroom, making excuses.

I read for a while—the latest National Geographic—and then switched off my bedside light. Moments later, there was a knock at my door. I thought about pretending I'd fallen asleep, but decided that was silly. "Come in."

The door opened. "Hey, Fraser." Shirtless in sweatpants, his features limned by the twilight sun that had not yet faded from the sky, he stood in the doorway like an uncertain petitioner. "Can I—?"

He gestured in my direction and I nodded, warily. I sat up and switched the light back on; he came into the room and settled himself at my side on the mattress. "I guess the idea of running off on another adventure was kind of, you know. One of those crazy dreams you have, like when you're ten years old and you want to be an astronaut?"

"A pipe dream."

"Yeah, exactly. You got responsibilities, I got responsibilities. I shouldn't be thinking about taking a big trip right now."

"That's probably wise."

"Exactly," he said, nodding. "Because what I really ought to be doing is looking for a job here."

I blinked. "A job?"

"I'm thinking, I could live here. Maybe not here, _Canada_ , 'cause what would I do here, join the RCMP? Har-dee-har-har, right? But hell, I just drove to Alaska the other day, and that's the U. S. of A. Maybe they need cops in Haines or, what's that other place?

"Skagway," I said automatically, then frowned. "Ray, what's this about? Does Amy want to move to Alaska?"

"Can you stop talking about her for one minute? Jesus, Fraser."

"Ray—"

"Look, I know what I said before, but I've been thinking—I had a long time to think about it, okay? I thought I wanted—well, I thought I wanted a lot of stuff, and then it turned out I wanted something else instead. I was dumb, Fraser, real dumb. I want—I was hoping—do you think you could give me a second chance?"

For a moment I could neither move nor speak; and then, suddenly, a surge of anger rippled through me and it was all I could do not to grab him by the shoulders and shake him hard. 

"That is _enough_. I'm not sure whether you are trying to fool me or fool yourself, but this needs to stop. It's unfair to Amy, and it's unfair to me."

His face twisted with frustration. "I'm serious, Frase, this is—"

"I heard you on the phone," I said, ruthlessly interrupting him. "'Love you too, babe.' Not the words of a man about to leave his wife."

Ray exhaled, then, and it was as if he had breathed out all his restless energy, all his intensity, leaving him empty and hollow and collapsed on the edge of my bed. "Tonight. When she called. She just told me. She's pregnant."

It seemed to me that all the oxygen had gone out of the room. I gasped like a landed fish, trying to breathe, trying to make sense of Ray's words, his actions, the look of genuine anguish on his face. He had once told me he wanted children, that Stella hadn't. That this was one of the things that had started their marriage on its slow downward slide.

"She had thought she might be," he continued, his voice dull and lifeless. "She did the test. It changed color."

"Ray," I said, as gently as I could. "I would have thought that was something you wanted."

Finally, a spark in his eye as he looked over at me. A bitter laugh. "Right. _Was_ being the operative word. Fraser, I was not lying when I said we were having problems. She wanted to start a family, I wanted to wait. Get things figured out, settled, you know? Then suddenly it's, oops, sorry, Ray, I guess the Pill's not a hundred percent."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well, so am I. She didn't want me to come up here, okay, I lied about that. I should have been straight with you from the beginning, huh? Jesus, this whole thing is so messed up. But I am _not_ sorry I came," he said fiercely.

"Ray, I—" I hesitated, then chose my words carefully: "I'm happy you came, as well. It was wonderful to see you again. But clearly your duty now lies with your family, and as much as I wish that things had gone differently between us, it's no use building castles in the air."

"Duty, yeah, sounds like something you'd say." He snorted, without mirth. "Pipe dreams. Castles in the air. Is that what you think this is? Look, I'm going to do right by my kid, I'm going to do right by Amy. I'll do my duty. 'Cause yeah, I still love her. I don't want to live with her, I don't want to be married to her, I don't want to spend my days at the goddamn Flagstaff Police Department putting up with that idiot Carmichael any more, but that doesn't mean I don't love her." His voice, which had risen with each declaration, softened. "Probably always will. Like I still love Stella." He reached out and covered my hand with his. "Thing about me is, I don't fall out of love too easy." 

My gut clenched. "Ray, don't."

"What about you, Frase?"

"That's irrelevant."

"What about you?" he said again. I couldn't meet his eyes. I felt him shift on the edge of the bed, moving the covers aside, and then his body was against mine, his fingers tangling in my hair, his lips close to my ear, warm breath gusting against my neck.

 _Oh, God._ I wanted so badly to respond, to turn and take him in my arms, to forget our problems for a while in simple animal pleasure. And yet knowing what I knew, having heard what I had heard, it was impossible that I should do so. My spine stiffened of its own accord. When I found my voice it was no more than a whisper. "Please, Ray. Don't."

His fingers and lips stilled, but he did not move away. "Fraser, you got to tell me, you still want me or you don't."

"It's not that simple."

"Yeah, I know. It's complicated and messy and hurts like a bitch, but that is life, Fraser, that is what life is. Sometimes it sucks, but you got to roll with it." Sighing, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. "You don't want me any more, you tell me, but that is not going to fix things with me and Amy."

 _I want you. I love you. I can't help you cheat on your wife._ I couldn't say any of it. Finally I said, "It's a hard thing to grow up without a father around."

"Yeah, you've been there, done that, right. But Stella, she'd say something different. Her folks had to get married—her mother was pregnant, her dad did the right thing. Soon as she went off to college, they got divorced. You think it's any easier growing up with a father who doesn't want to be there?"

"I don't know," I admitted.

"Me neither. I mean, I know you, Fraser, you look at your choices and you do the right thing. But sometimes there _is_ no right thing, there's just a choice between things that suck, and you got to figure out which one sucks the least."

We lay side-by-side for a while as the last bit of light finally vanished from the sky. Eventually he said, "I guess I should go back to my room."

"Good night, Ray."

"See you in the morning," he said, unfurling himself from my bed and rising to his feet. In the doorway he paused and turned back to me; despite the smile on his lips, his eyes were serious and sad. "I'm just hoping you don't fall out of love too easy, too." Then he closed the door, and I was alone.

* * *

My emotions were churning as I walked out of Ray Vecchio's hospital room. My old friend had taken a bullet from Muldoon, the same man who had killed my father; in the hallway waited the man who had taken a bullet for me on the day we met.

"It's for you," Ray Kowalski said, holding out his phone. It was Constable Turnbull, who told me where I might find Muldoon, and I passed the information on to Ray. He looked at me thoughtfully, appraisingly. Finally he shrugged. "So. What, we still partners?"

"If you'll have me," I said.

Over the course of the next several months this became a catchphrase between us. Maybe it was because Ray, in his heart, needed to know that he was needed; maybe he just liked to annoy me. "We still partners?" he would ask me, time and again: after we'd jumped from Muldoon's plane and landed in the snow, while we were stuck in a crevasse, while we worked feverishly to set up camp amid a blowing, howling snowstorm. While we lay in the tent together, sated and drowsy.

"We still partners?" he would ask.

Every time, my answer was the same. It would always be the same.

* * *

In the morning I made coffee and blueberry pancakes, and we listened to the news on the radio while we ate. As I cleared away the dishes, I asked Ray what he'd like to do on his last full day in the Yukon.

He looked at the floor, then back at me. "I was thinking, I've been through Whitehorse twice now, but I haven't really seen it yet. It's the biggest city in the Yukon, right? I bet there's a lot to do."

"Whitehorse it is," I said, but he shook his head.

"Actually, I was kind of thinking that maybe I should just go on my own, poke around, spend the night. Since I'm flying out Sunday early."

"I see." My thoughts must have shown on my face, because he reached across the table and laid his fingers across my wrist for a brief moment.

"Fraser, I got a lot of things to think about, okay? I just figured, maybe it would be easier to think about them on my own."

I nodded. I had a lot to think about, as well. I thought of my own father, of the scraps of affection he had doled out in such tiny portions. I remembered Vinnie, whose wife had hidden their baby in the back seat of Ray Vecchio's car, shortly after I'd arrived in Chicago. Vinnie had tried to sell his child—then risked his own life to keep him. If Ray were to stay, would he become bitter, trapped in a life he didn't want with a family he hated? Or would the magic of fatherhood change him, turn him into the man whom he had thought, before these doubts, he had always wanted to be?

Ray had so many choices lying ahead of him, and so many ways to choose. What was best for him; what was best for Amy; what was best for their unborn child. I would be his partner if he would have me, yes, but it was his decision to make. Not mine.

He packed his bags while I dealt with the breakfast dishes. All too soon we stood at the door.

"Fraser," he said. "I gotta know. If I do this, if Amy and me—if I get a job here, if I move up here, can I, will you let me…." He gestured towards my living room, and I nodded.

"Yes," I said. "Yes, of course. If you'll have me."

A pause. "And if I stay in Arizona?"

"Ray," I said, "you will always be my friend."

He looked at me for a moment, then threw his arms around me, and I hugged him as tightly as I could. Our cheeks brushed, his stubble against my smooth skin, and then he turned his head and I turned mine and our lips met for one electric moment; and then carefully, regretfully, we stepped away from each other.

"Guess I should be going."

"Have a safe journey." I stood on the step watching as he loaded his bags into the back of the Pathfinder, got behind the wheel, and pulled out of the drive. Then he was gone, his vehicle a red dot on the eastern horizon.

I went back inside and made myself a cup of tea. I had waited five years. I could wait longer.


End file.
